USE IT, OR LOSE IT

Work on the Mexican Hacienda Courtyard Kitchen Cantina Garden is suddenly picking up speed. Setting the cedar fence posts took forever, and the electrical work even longer - without much visible progress to report. The stonework, however, seems to be zipping right along. They managed to pave the bridge, and almost complete the pathway that will connect it to the porch, in just a couple of days. And, while they were doing that, a wrought-iron gate and sconces just appeared out of nowhere! So, pretty much all that's left now is forming the terraced beds, and backing the fence with hog panel - to deter the smaller critters that might be tempted to squeeze through the posts and raid my garden. After that, I guess the rest is up to me.

Yikes! That's a scary thought, considering the way I've been building up everyone's expectations. The truth of the matter is, my gardening skills are extremely rusty. In fact, "gone" would probably be a better word. You know the old saying "Use it, or lose it"? Well, I didn't, so I did.

Back when we lived in Dallas, I sort of went mad for gardening. Seriously. I read every gardening book or magazine I could get my hands on, but that just wasn't enough. So, I joined the organic gardening club, the herb society, and the native plant society. Nope, still not enough. Then I enrolled in the horticulture program at the community college. Nyet. That still didn't cut it. Finally, I went to work for a landscape architect who was a fountain of knowledge and experience, and that finally did the trick. I soaked up everything I possibly could from her, and eventually felt worthy of being called a gardener.

Then, we moved to Houston. Time to forget most of what I'd picked up, and learn instead how to garden in a rain forest! Once my tropical paradise was designed and established, I went out looking for work, and landed a peach of a job as Visual Merchandiser at Buchanan's Native Plants. It was a fabulous way to stretch and strengthen my creativity, but I was so busy doing displays that I never had time to concentrate on the plants, or get any practice using what I had already learned, so the knowledge began to slip away.

Next, we stumbled across our heart's home here in Wimberley, bought it, and decided to ditch the tropical paradise house, and rent a townhouse with a couple of pots on the porch instead. For five years now, I've been a woman without a garden, and it seems as if everything I ever knew on the subject has been lost. So, here I am, starting from scratch once again, in another new climate zone, under conditions which I know nothing about, and having to deal with deer, raccoons, skunks, rattlesnakes and armadillos, on top of everything else.

Well, here goes nothing. Guess it's time to put on my big girl panties and deal with it!